Web threats

Q4 2017 represented something of a lull: both the number and duration of DDoS attacks were down against the previous quarter. At the same time, the increase in the number of attacks on honeypot traps in the runup to holiday sales indicates that cybercriminals are keen to expand their botnets at the most opportune moment by pressuring owners of online resources and preventing them from making a profit. Read Full Article

In the third quarter of 2017, we registered a considerable increase in the number of both DDoS attacks and their targets. Traditionally, China is the country with the largest number of attack sources and targets. It was followed by the United States and South Korea. The popularity of Windows OS as a basis for creating a botnet has fallen noticeably, while the share of Linux-based botnets increased proportionally. Read Full Article

The second quarter quite clearly showed that the DDoS-attack threat is perceived rather seriously. Some companies were prepared to pay cybercriminals literally after their first demand without waiting for the attack itself. This set off a whole new wave of fraud involving money extortion under threat of a DDoS attack, also known as “ransom DDoS”. Read Full Article

According to Gartner, there are currently over 6 billion IoT devices on the planet. Such a huge number of potentially vulnerable gadgets could not possibly go unnoticed by cybercriminals. As of May 2017, Kaspersky Lab’s collections included several thousand different malware samples for IoT devices, about half of which were detected in 2017. Read Full Article

Although the first quarter of 2017 was rather quiet compared to the previous reporting period, there were a few interesting developments. Despite the growing popularity of IoT botnets, Windows-based bots accounted for 59.81% of all attacks. Meanwhile, complex attacks that can only be repelled with sophisticated protection mechanisms are becoming more frequent. Read Full Article

Almost anyone can fall victim to a DDoS attack. They are relatively cheap and easy to organize, and can be highly effective if reliable protection is not in place. Based on analysis of the data obtained from open sources, we managed to find out the current cost of a DDoS attack on the black market. We also established what exactly the cybercriminals behind DDoS attacks offer their customers. Read Full Article

2016 was the year of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) with major disruptions in terms of technology, attack scale and impact on our daily life. In fact, the year ended with massive DDoS attacks unseen before, leveraging Mirai botnet technology. Read Full Article

From November 8 to 12, websites of some of the largest Russian banks fell victim to heavy DDoS attacks. Initially, it was no indication of anything unusual – all well-known banks get attacked from time to time – but further developments have evolved in the manner that allowed us to suggest a high level of organization in regards to the series of attacks. Read Full Article

Interesting trend this quarter was the increased activity of DDoS botnets in Western Europe. For the first time in a year the TOP 10 most attacked countries included three Western European countries – Italy, France and Germany. Read Full Article

In Q2 2016, the geography of DDoS attacks narrowed to 70 countries, with China accounting for 77.4% of attacks. In fact, 97.3% of the targeted resources were located in just 10 countries. The longest DDoS attack in the second quarter of 2016 lasted for 291 hours, which significantly exceeded the Q1 maximum of 197 hours. Read Full Article

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